System volume?

[leichaolan]

Hello again. I've been pretty hung up on school and a new job so I haven't been here too often. Hmm.... Seems like you've had some trouble with uh.....obnixious unwanted guests... Anyways, on to the question. I'm running Win XP and a miraculous program called Tree Size Pro (it gives you a very detailed, organized sturcture that shows you how much space you're using in your HD and what is using it all), and a major offender is someting called 'system volume information' taking up 3 gigs out of my 20. The other is my music folders, but I know what they are so they're no trouble. So basically, what is this system volume information and why is it taking up so much space? When I try to see what's in it, it contains a bunch of files I've never seen before. I don't even know what kind of files they are! What gives? Thanks in advance as always.

[Reid]

The System Volume Information folder is a hidden, system folder that the System Restore tool uses to store its information and restore points. There is a System Volume Information folder on every partition on your computer.

I'm new to XP, but I suspect mine is using about the same amount of hard drive for the restore file.

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Friends don't let friends install Windows ME

[This message has been edited by Reid (edited 01-19-2002).]

[iisbob]

In MS terms a volume is any hard disk space, ( look in disk admin and you'll see your drive called a volume ) or collection of partitions assigned as a dynamic disk ( also called dynamic volume ) -it's an old feature of NT to be able to take multiple partitions of the same size and view them as one drive, not much good if one crashes however, as then all are unaccessable, but it gives you a " virtual " larger drive. this came in handy back in the pre-megaGB drive days.

I'm not sure why you're seeing a 3GB volume; unless you have a partiton that size-or have inadvertantly created a volume set ( say 3-1GB drives combined as a drive ). If you have more than one partiton, or drives-you have " volumes ", i'd look in disk admin at their setup, as i stated above you may have inadvertantly created a small volume set.

Be aware that if you have, and you wish to remove it-then all data on that volume set will be lost! Because you have to do a basic format on it to recover the independant drives in the set.

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iisbob

CPU= 5mhz
Memory= 16 K
Storage=10.2MB's
Video=Onboard S3 4K
Modem=14.4 baud
Sound=ISA Yamaha 8bit
Mouse=2 button MS
Monitor=ACER 12.5"
OS= WIN 3.1

My ultimate gaming system :)

[iisbob]

DOH! Good catch Reid-i forgot all about the system restore feature in XP ( especially since i have disabled it ). DUH http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif


My system folder is obviously 0 KB's. I see no use in this dubious " feature "' , so i disabled it.

Geese, talk about being [way off the target. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/tongue.gif

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iisbob

CPU= 5mhz
Memory= 16 K
Storage=10.2MB's
Video=Onboard S3 4K
Modem=14.4 baud
Sound=ISA Yamaha 8bit
Mouse=2 button MS
Monitor=ACER 12.5"
OS= WIN 3.1

My ultimate gaming system :)

[Reid]

Iisbob,

I started thinking along your line, but then I remembered that my XP installation is taking up a similar amount because of the Restore files. I have only used Restore once when a driver installation went bad, but it can eat up hard drive space.

I left the disk as FAT32 so I could still make Ghost image backups with an older (5.1) version of Ghost. I want to be prepared for a "major malfunction" that Restore can't fix. I tested a restored image and had no Windows Product Activation issues.

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Friends don't let friends install Windows ME

[leichaolan]

Yep. I think Reid has it. But I remember going to the control panel and setting system restore to take up only about 1.5 gigs. If Reid is right, why would it go all the way up to 3? Admittedly, I do use the system restore function often since I'm usually too lazy to figure out what went wrong and reverse it (doesn't always work though...) so would my frequent use of sys restore make the feature take up more space than it's supposed to ?

[sea69]

hehe.. System Restore= disabled here.

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif

leichaolan- what are you doing that requires these many restores??

I have yet to run into a situation where this would even be a consideration.



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sea1_69@hotmail.com

homepage (http://www.seanweb1.homestead.com/3.html)


XP Rocks!

[BigBlue66]

iisbob: What do geese have to do with it? This is a computer forum and those are birds that fly south for the winter. Hehehehehe Sorry, couldn't resist. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

I believe the proper spelling, for future info, is something like "Jeesh".

Cheers, and No Offense

BB 66

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[leichaolan]

The ultimate in laziness. I vaguely remember ,one time, using sys restore to restore my computer from a bad uninstall or something. I remember it was trivial and could have been reversed if I took the necessary steps. But, like stated above, I'd rather let the computer take 2min or so to do all the work for me. Question: If I disable sys restore, will that 3 gig be freed? Also, if I disable it, can I still make restore points manually?

[leichaolan]

Sorry for the re-post, but I just answered my own question. I turned off sys restore and it deleted all my old restore points and lo and behold, my HD space grew by 3 gigs. But why? WHY MICROSOFT WHY???!!?? I set the sys restore function to take up only 1 gig, and it takes three! Anyways, afterwards, I tried to run sys restore just to see what would happen. It basically told me to turn it back on (which I did) and then I ran sys restore and made a new restore point (cost about 60megs). I'm sure that my system will continually make restore points over it's limit again (now that I've got it on). Is it possible to enable the function but keep it from making restore points by itself? I can't just turn it on to use it, then turn it back off since this would delete the point I just made. Thanks for the responses dudes.

[Reid]

Part of the "missing" hard drive space is due to the cluster size your hard drive is using. If you have FAT32 on a 20G drive, then you have 16k clusters. A 1k file will take 16k, and a 17k file will use 32k.
PC Mechanic File Systems (http://www.pcmech.com/show/harddrive/53/)

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Friends don't let friends install Windows ME